Damn You Justin Bebo.

Damn you and your list of female admirers that is only fractionally longer than mine was at the same age. You may well claim to be the perfect gentlemen and that you are holding out for the right one but we know that never worked for Britney and it won’t for you.

Damn you and your perfect hair that looks like you just extracted your head from a cows butt. Yes, your sparkly teeth and youthful dimples look real swell right now but they’ll go soon buddy, so you’d better get your mug on as many mugs as quick as you can, for posterity sake.

Which you have, damn you and in doing so have inexplicably linked your dreamy self to Pippa Middleton, sister of Kate and the real royal hotness. Somehow you’ve managed to charm your way into a tit for tat agreement with her company; they make merchandising tat and you’d like to see her...well, you know.

But I think we both know how this will end.

Oh sure you’ve some mad skills dance moves now and the voice that sounds like your balls haven’t got a single hair on them yet, but those moves will eventually go and those blue plums will drop, because they always do.

Then what huh? The looks will fade and you’ll be like Rob Lowe. The music will become dull and predictable and you’ll be like Bret Michaels, making programs like Rock of Love Bus where you start with 39 ladies and a porn star. Guess which one you’ll eventually pick as the winner?

After that career highlight you’ll bash a few girlfriends, do far too many drugs and appear in something as a caricature of your real self. Then you’ll wake up as the Charlie Sheen of your generation.

And yet, before all that happens, I’m guessing that you’ll still manage to charm Pippa into that single bed of yours, the one with the Wizards of Waverly Place duvet set on it.

Damn you Justin Bebo. Damn you.

Well I'm not putting a picture of him on my blog now am I...

Pre Dinner Txt

Coops > Me: Yo, what time do you want us to arrive and what should we bring?

Me > Mrs ClubDes: What time do we want the Coopers to arrive and what do they need to bring?

Mrs ClubDes > Me: 5.30 and nothing.

Me > Coops: 5.30 and an eight inch, ribbed, double ended dildo. And it has to be black. Any other colour and don’t even bother turning up.

PlankPlankPlankPlank

Planking. It’s what all the kids are doing apparently and is the next ‘big’ in a long line of ‘things’ that we adults look at and wonder “what the fuck is up with that shit?”.

Some guy died the other day whilst attempting a drunken plank on the balcony of his high rise in Aussie. Despite it being quite the tragic event it has had a predictable flow on effect; now every ones doing it because there’s nothing quite like the chance of accidental death to make something lame seem that much more edgy.

Now it occurs to me that ‘planking’ is only a few letters away from ‘wanking’ which is something we did a lot of when we were kids and although no one took photos and posted them on the interweb, I know we had a lot more fun.

But the similarities don’t end there, oh no. If you’re a planker, then you have uncanny resemblance to being a wanker, which is the last thing any of us wanted to look like back in the day just in case someone cottoned on to the fact that we actually were.

So there you have it then, myth confirmed; wanking is ultimate more satisfying than planking.

One for the plankers...

...and one for the wankers.

Love A Big Box (Full of Posters)

One of the ladies at reception called me today to say that ‘she had a big box for me to come down and grab’. Naturally I got down there pretty quick because although she is older, she is quite tidy.

It turned out to be some posters I had scrounged from another department and they were AWESOME. Proper posters too, not little A3 size things you have to stand right up close to see, but floor to ceiling numbers that would knock the socks off even a blind man.

Naturally I took to hanging them around Help Desk High straight away because I love putting up posters, always have done. Maybe it had something to do with the multi-coloured, multi-striped wallpaper and carpet combo my old bedroom had back in our Statey, I just couldn’t cover the fucken things quick enough.

For a long time I wasn’t allowed anything on my walls other than the standard doily in a frame that some Nana had knitted. My sister’s mother had a thing about us too leaving drawing pin holes in the walls so posters were verboten. The very same woman would attempt to redecorate the hallway a few years later and made such a balls up of trying to strip the paper from the walls that she gave up midway through leaving one half of it looking like a poorly shaven scrotum.

Quite what the Housing NZ people made of it when the last of our clan eventually moved out I’ll never know. They were probably blinded by the nuclear waste green kitchen she had painted though and not noticed because to my knowledge nothing ever came of it.

The first real posters I recall putting up were WWF ones from the Sunday News that appeared on Page Three which up till then, had been graced by a spectacularly endowed topless girl each week. Someone must have complained though and that someone must’ve been a housewife because when the paper did make the change thousands of married men were suddenly a lot less inclined to pop out to get the Sunday paper.

Eventually them newsprint posters were replaced with football ones, lots of football ones. I didn't care who or what the team, if my weekly Shoot! had a poster in it (and it always had several) then it went on the wall.

At some point they were gradually replaced with Beverly Hills 90210 posters and alike from the kind of magazines that now do their utmost to make young girls feel bad about themselves. I did the same with my school books because covering them with that kind of rubbish was cool for the time.

Being a boy most of mine were slathered in footballers or scantily clad young ladies. Guess which one got me in trouble with our giant penis of an Assistant Principal? He decided my maths book was sexiest and degrading and ordered me to recover all my books. In my defense I claimed that the scantily clad fellas that the girls had on their books was a) just as sexist fuck you very much and b) made me feel a hell of a lot more inadequate than I already did at aged 14.

He didn't buy it of course. And he wonders why, almost without fail, his house got stoned every weekend.

He didn't send his kids to our school incidentally, which I always think is a bit suss when a teacher does that because either they plan to be such an arse hole to everyone that they seriously fear the retaliation that will be heaped upon their spawn, or they don't rate the school at which they work. The bastards.

Not that that was the last time posters got me in trouble. My attempt to steal a whole bunch of said mags from Foodtown got me snapped shoplifting and a subsequent trespass from the place for years, which sucked because most of my mates worked there and I'd have to wait for them outside to share the things they'd nicked whilst on shift. Oh the irony.

My last real foray into posters was when I worked in a music store and was able to get my hands on some serious wall hanging material. Like floor to mother fucking ceiling Oasis posters, or life sized cardboard cutouts of the Spice Girls, oh yeah. I didn't pull many birds during that period, admittedly and for the life of me I can't think why..

Nowadays of course I'm an adult and find quiet solitude in having a few block mounted Matrix movie posters and the highlight of my Christmas, a Spurs calender for the shitter. Yeah.

Little wonder then I got so excited to get my hand on her at receptions big box today.

The Sunday News replaced boobs with moobs on Page 3...

More Sensing Bullshit...

Apocalypse followers shocked as nothing happens.

Robert Fitzpatrick spent more than $140,000 of his savings on posters and advertisements warning of the May 21 Judgement Day.

As he stood in Times Square in New York, surrounded by onlookers, Fitzpatrick, 60, carried a bible and handed out leaflets as he waited for Judgement Day to begin. When the hour, 6pm New Zealand time, came and went, he said: "I do not understand why ...," as his speech broke off and he looked at his watch.

"I do not understand why nothing has happened."

With no sign of Judgement Day arriving as he had forecast, Harold Camping, the 89-year-old California evangelical broadcaster and former civil engineer behind the pronouncement seemed to go silent.

Family Radio, the Christian stations network headed by Camping which had spread his message of an approaching doomsday, was playing recorded church music, devotionals and life advice unrelated to the apocalypse.

Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994.

The apocalypse was predicted to begin in New Zealand and move west, so those in America could watch it on television.

"We know the end will begin in New Zealand and will follow the sun and roll on from there," said Camping follower Michael Garcia, a 39-year-old father of six. "That's why God raised up all the technology and the satellites so everyone can see it happen at the same time."

The Oakland, California, headquarters of the network of 66 US stations was shuttered with a sign in the door that read "This Office is Closed. Sorry we missed you!"

Family Radio officials, with the help of supporters, had posted over 2000 billboards around the country warning of a May 21 Judgement Day. The headquarters, which appears to be normally closed on Saturday, was also shuttered on Friday.

Retired Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker Robert Fitzpatrick, 60, said he spent more than US$140,000 of his savings on subway posters and bus shelter advertisements warning of the May 21 Judgement Day.

"God's people are commanded to sound the warning, to sound the trumpet so to speak so people know," Fitzpatrick said of his advertising blitz. He said Camping led him to believe Judgement Day would be May 21, but added that he disagreed with the broadcaster's prediction it would begin in Asia.

In Fitzpatrick's view, from his reading of the Bible, Judgement Day would begin around 6 pm Eastern Time. He said on Saturday he still had no doubt Judgement Day would come this day.

"I wouldn't even entertain that question because there's too much proof from the Bible," he said.

Canned Gina & Bottled Chubby?

Tbag, our man in Cana-duh has filed his first report and just as he's always done since that night in the Mekong where we had to spoon under the one poncho we had between us, he knows what I like.

Like canned Gina. Lovely. And if you turn your head and look at the 'G' side on it kinda looks like....oh never mind. But not to be outdone, or sexist, there's also a Chubby. In a bottle.

Which beggars the question really; what came first, the Chubby or the Gina....?

The Dumb Down Burger

The intelligence of this country took another hit this week with the arrival of the Double Down burger from that bastion of healthy life choices, KFC.

Naturally the health conscious freaked and got their miserable, puckered anus like faces in and on everything dispelling the nutritional content of such a thing. It was an exercise that backfired spectacularly because in doing so they created huge hype to something that even the company admitted on camera it was never really going to promote.

Oh and of course the media had a field day with it.

I’ve said it once but I love the sound of my voice so I’ll do so again; we’re a pretty sad fucken country when something like a burger gets the tits in a tangle and it starts becoming a lead news story. It’s not news, it’s a burger. It’s not a health epidemic, it’s a burger and it’s certainly not a freedom of choice issue because it’s only a fucken burger.

And are you, like me, sick to death of seeing nutritionists bagging everything they personally wouldn’t eat and taking the moral high ground accordingly? I for one know that they don’t practice what they preach for I regularly bump into (I wish, she’s quite tidy) the dietitian I had whilst in the hospital last, at the supermarket and she buys some shit, so there you go.

And they’re only ever one of two types of people are these self appointed experts; morbidly obese thus completely jealous of anyone that eats the Double Down, or stick thin and thus incapable of holding the Double Down let alone eat it (thus being completely jealous of anyone who can).

It's not even the worst burger I've ever heard off. That particular honour goes to one that a guy who we always called 'uncle' but actually wasn't, told me to ask for a fur burger at the corner dairy. Now I might have only been 10 years old but even I suspected I didn't want one, especially as he haven't given me any money to pay for it.

By all means, fight the good fight on childhood obesity and all that jazz but pick your battles aye? Steer clear of anything that any fast food joint churns out because people go there to buy that rubbish. They don’t give a toss about you telling them how much salt is in the damn thing or the calorie count any more than a smoker cares how much nicotine is in their durry; all they care is that there is some.

So the Double Down is here for five weeks and for the small minority of the population that have or will try them, like Chef and JK, they’re pretty good by all accounts. KFC are rubbing their fat caked hands with all the free publicity they’ve gotten over it and every celery eater who spoke up about body mass index and shit looks like a fool, again.

Personally that stuff goes right through me and looks the same coming out as it did going in, so I won’t be partaking unless I have the urge for a cheap colonic. But I do feel a little bit dumber for having seen / heard / read the whole sorry saga so maybe a product rename is in order:

New from KFC – The Dumb Down Burger.

Even the Chef, with his extraordinary culinary palate, inhaled his Dumb Down burger.

An Ode to TBag - Last of the Retro Dressers

Sad days round these parts last week with the leaving of one Tim ‘T-Bag’ Borlase, the last of the retro dressers.

The origins of our hirsute hero are shrouded in secrecy, half truths and a Cold Chisel soundtrack. We first met back in ‘Nam where I came across the young T Bag fishing whilst nude. He claimed it made him one with the water and although others thought it made him look crazy I could see his nuts and it didn’t bother me one bit. That’s where he got his nickname, incidentally.

But then the waters around Nam were warm and moist, just like the jungle. I didn’t know it then but it wouldn’t be the first time I caught him naked around fish. Perhaps it was the war, perhaps it was a fetish, who really knows but even in the middle of a war zone the guy loved to fish and still does. If he’s not actually fishing then he’s either watching programmes or reading magazines, about fishing.

Ironic then that he should be on his way to Canada where the salmon are nervous and the beer is like making love in a boat; fucking close to water.

In some parts of that country they speak French. Celine Dion is from Canada. She speaks French and English but lets face it, she sounds awful in either language. Wolverine is from Canada too and although he is a borderline feral personality with six razor sharp claws that pop out of his hands at will, I’d rather meet him quite frankly. Sadly he’s a fictional comic book character, so no real chance there. Dion on the other hand is very real *shiver*.

Once, in a tender moment shared in a communal warm shower, TBag revealed to me that he had grown up on the very square streets of Palmerston North. A little known fact about Palmy is that it has NZ's highest population of ugly people, a fact confirmed to me one time by the missus who had the misfortune to be ’out on the town’ there one night.

I had a mate called Palmy once. He was a wanker.

It was there that Timmo developed his appreciation of all things passion wagon. He covets a good wagon did our TBag and as a four doors and a hatch man myself, I respect that. But then who wouldn’t really because wagons are the original all purpose vehicle; kids, pets, groceries, sports equipment, firewood, dogging…the wagon has it all covered.

We have two such fine specimens at The Club, aptly named Passion Wagons Mk 1 and 2. Mk1 is made by Hyundai and crafted from hardened Korean steel, just like the huge, globe circling ships they build. Despite knowing this I do have a nagging suspicion it will crumple like a potato chip were we involved in a collision tomorrow, but then it is built for speed with no electrics and no such luxuries as side impact airbags.

Mk2 is a Mazda which for some reasons Americans pronounce the same way they do ‘asthma’, like a kid with a lisp. It’s from the country that gave us Ninjas, The Kamikaze and guys who like to kill blonde European girls and hide their bodies in a bathtub full of sand on their balcony. It too is built for speed, has all the electrics and airbags you could want, but yet is currently sounding like a World War One biplane as it attempts to start each morning. Bloody electrics.

Anyhoo, our Timmo has made like a Christian and pulled out which leaves us with a void where once there was a good looking guy in flared trousers and a bomber jacket with WWF badges on his sleeve.

It’s only been a week but just like Nam the withdrawal symptoms have kicked in, so much so I found myself watching a fishing show on TV whilst rocking back and forth in the foetal position. It was that one with the guy in the wheelchair, who seems very nice, but a small part of me does want to see what happens if he were to accidentally roll off the end of the boat at some point…

So farewell Timmo. Our gain is Canada’s loss, or something like that. And hey, never forget what that wise old VC bugger in Tan Son Nhut said to us that time we captured him:

“Ông đã đi ngủ với một gã ăn mày ngứa, tỉnh dậy với một ngón tay có mùi”

TBag and one of his passion wagons. That's not a blue cod in his pocket either...

All Gone Ron.

Yes, this is another blog about football. Don’t like football? Tough, it’s my blog. Why don’t you like football, what’s wrong with you?

But I’ll keep this brief, just for you haters.

If there’s one thing I hate it’s a sore loser and I know a thing or two about sore losing because when it comes to the world’s biggest, I’m right up there. Not that I demonstrate this in front of my girls mind you, my responsibility to them to be the best coach I can be is far more important than me getting my sulk on.

In almost nine years of coaching I’m proud to say I have lost my rag only the once and even then it was due to the ref being a deaf, dumb, blind man with no legs.

So it pisses me off when I see guys like Christiano Ronaldo start talking conspiracy theories and shit after being beaten across two games, fair and square, like Real Madrid were by Barcelona yesterday. In fact the game was the antithesis of anything resembling a conspiracy given that the referee flatly refused to send one of the Madrid boys off despite him fouling anybody that came within kicking distance.

Ronaldo is King of the Sulks. He’s also the second best and one of the most recognisable players in the world and he didn’t get to be either by packing a sad every time he lost.

Well. He probably did, because he’s that kind of guy, but it’s fair to say his talent, not his tanties that got him to where he is. So maybe he should just man up and take it on that magnificent waxed chest of his, or maybe, just maybe, work a bit harder during the game to really do something about it.

My chest, on the other hand, is neither magnificent nor tanned but even I can take a loss or two, except this past weekend when my beloved Spurs lost to Chelsea in controversial circumstances. I should have known that when the ref arrived dressed as a mime that things were going to get a bit tasty. Thus the Chavs won, not by one, but two incorrectly given goals.

Now I can accept a fuck up from a volunteer official. I see it almost every game my teams play but like I always say to my girls you just have to accept that the ref is just a guying living vicariously through his daughter and he’s going to be as biased as shit. You can’t change it; you just have to get on with it.

But you expect more of highly paid professionals that do it for a living. If we relax this expectation then let’s save everybody’s time and just have a series of 38 coin tosses at the start of the season and decide the champions that way. I for one would get a few more hours of sleep a season.

Sometimes I wonder if life would be easier if I just decided to follow one of those teams that seem to win everything, like Real Madrid.

Nah, fuck it. It’s all gone Ron for them anyway.

Wake Up

I had a bit of a retrospective the other day and listened to the entire Rage Against the Machine back catalogue in the car.

I think I finally realise just why I was such an angry young man in 6th form...

I always had my fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy...